Questions concerning Arduino - please share your opinions

[Nora]

arduino dsp

I've never used an Arduino, only PIC and Motorola DSP with their respective $$, but highly useful compilers.
It seems like Arduino is easy and cheap- $30 for protoboard and FREE compiler.

I have observed that it is considered too basic for engineers and engineering students. I'm guessing that Arduino is a step up from Lego Mindstorms and the Basic Stamp, but I've never used any of these.
I can see that there may be limitations, but it is fuzzy to me as to what these are.

Can anyone discuss? I'd like to use the Arduino to make a kit.
Nora

 

[alessioblaupunkt]

superior to arduino

OEM Site
Some great work with arduino
I'm a newbie with it. Bye.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Arduino

Many PIC compilers have free editions. C18 for example has a free student edition with only optimizations disabled. Since you can program hundreds of different PICs and with a hardware debugger like the PICkit2 or my Junebug make it superior to the Arduino IMO.

 

[Nora]

Re: Arduino

I like the Junebug kit, nice job! I like the CA flag on the PCB too. And the use of Sketchup Super!
But do you still have to pay for the compiler?
I use the CCS compiler and it is $350 so you can see how using an Arduino is appealing... I just want to make a simple PID trainer kit.
Nora